When Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider joined the Detroit Red Wings last season, it signaled that the team had entered the fun part of their rebuild. No longer is it just about accumulating picks and prospects; now it’s about integrating those young players into the Red Wings’ lineup, so long as they are ready. That process continued at the start of the 2022-23 season, as forward Elmer Söderblom made the opening night roster and has played in 13 games since then. The latest prospect to make his way into Detroit’s lineup, however, arrived with a ton of fanfare.
You see, fans have been excited about Jonatan Berggren for quite some time.
A former second round pick, Berggren has regularly been featured as one of the organization’s top prospects since he was added to the system in the summer of 2018. In our most recent Red Wings prospect rankings, he ranked second behind 2021 first round pick Simon Edvinsson. Prior to that, he was the topic of feature pieces and several other prospect reports on this site as well as others. If you’ve read about the Red Wings’ prospect at any point in the last three years, you were probably already familiar with Berggren when it was announced Detroit was calling him up from their American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, the Grand Rapids Griffins.
Related: Red Wings Top 25 Prospects: Post-2022 NHL Draft
That is why it is so exciting to not only see Berggren wearing the winged wheel this season, but to see him thriving early on as well. Whether it’s expected or not, the Swedish winger is already making a strong case that he should stay in Detroit from here on out.
Berggren Already Producing
Through his first three NHL games, Berggren has already collected two points, including his first goal which came against the Anaheim Ducks on Nov. 15.
It wasn’t anything pretty or highlight real-worthy. Berggren was simply in the right place at the right time, and he was able to quickly kick the puck from his skate to his stick and bury it past John Gibson. The goal came on the power play, and the fact that he was already seeing time on a special teams unit speaks volumes of what the Red Wings’ coaching staff thinks of Berggren and his offensive capabilities.
“Skillset comes as advertised,” Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde said of Berggren during training camp. “He probably plays with a little better pace than I anticipated too.” As things progressed into the preseason, Lalonde remained bullish on Berggren’s play,…
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